The PHOENIX project is a European Union funded collaborative project improving the cyber security of the European electrical power energy systems (EPES), i.e. the so called Smart Grid. PHOENIX aims to offer a cyber-shield armour to European EPES infrastructure enabling cooperative detection of large scale, cyber-human security and privacy incidents and attacks, guarantee the continuity of operations and minimize cascading effects in the infrastructure itself, the environment, the citizens and the end-users at reasonable cost.

PHOENIX at a glance

  • Topic: SU-DS04-2018-2020
  • Grant Number: 832989
  • Total Cost: € 10 999 208,21
  • EC Contribution: € 7 995 004,25
  • Start Date: 01/09/2019
  • End date: 31/08/2022

The Challenge

Provide a cyber-shield armour to European EPES to survive coordinated, large scale cybersecurity and privacy incidents; guarantee the continuity of operations and minimize cascading effects in the infrastructure itself, the environment and the end-users at reasonable cost.

Project Objectives

  • Strengthen EPES cybersecurity preparedness.
  • Coordinate cyber-incident discovery, sharing & response.
  • Accelerate research & innovation in EPES cybersecurity via DevSecOps and innovative ML-based technologies.

Concept and approach

PHOENIX focuses on the protection of the European EPES via: (i) Cybersecurity & Data Privacy by design and by innovation, (ii) cross-country Cybersecurity Information Sharing, realising NIS Directive (iii) realistic exploitation, penetration testing and verification/certification methodologies and procedures and (iv) validation in 5 real-life Large Scale Pilots (LSP) across Europe.

The PHOENIX approach focuses on the protection of the European end-to-end EPES (Electrical Power and Energy System) (from energy production to prosumption) via prevention, early detection and fast mitigation of cyber-attacks against EPES assets and networks and from (intentional and unintentional, internal and external) human activities, while protecting the utilities and end-users’ privacy from data breaches by design.

A distributed yet fully synchronized  pan-European I2SP which will collect and share incidents’ information and trained ML models without the need to share sensitive information across EPES operators and CERTs.

Expected Results

A holistic EPES security & privacy protection framework, including: (i)  5G/ inter-DLT secure & traceable communications, (ii) Situation Awareness, Perception & Comprehension based on privacy-preserving federated ML/zero knowledge verification, (iii) traceable/near real-time synchronized incidents information sharing platform (I2SP), (iv) GDPR Privacy Protection Toolkit, (v) innovative Security & Privacy as a service business model (vi) Certification methodology and procedures (targeting TRL 7-8).

Target end users

  • EPES Management Teams/Owners, Utilities
  • CERTs and National Security Organizations
  • ICT & security technology providers
  • Ιnstitutional agencies for Civil Protection, EU and National-wide policy makers and regulatory bodies

EU Policies

PHOENIX aligns to the Directive on European Critical Infrastructure (ECI) on the energy sector, eth basic arrangements for information exchange against risks and threats and the NIS Directive. The PHOENIX joint Cybersecurity Certification Centre will support EPES systems and assets cybersecurity, privacy and interoperability certification methodologies.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and Innovation programme under grant agreement N°832989. All information on this website reflects only the authors’ view. The Agency and the Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information this website contains.

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